I have lost Laura Quinn. I'm looking for her.
She is approximately 26 (just like me), she has ginger hair (just like me), she spent some of her formative years in Dunfermline, going to after school activities (just like me). In short, Laura Quinn is my double, my non biological non related twin and just as she showed up in my life unexpectedly she disappeared too.
I have told this story countless times...she arrived at my Brownie pack one evening (we must have been 8 years old) and my best friend Bev ran up to her and started talking away about something that had happened earlier, only to realise this girl was not Helen. My mum approached her on the street, assuming it was me. Even more eerie was the fact we seemed to grow up together, we didn't live near each other, go to the same school or have the same friends but when we encountered each other we had changed simaltaneously - both getting glasses, growing our hair out, chopping it again. We were linked.
And now she has gone, I don't know where. Have you seen her?
*******
Helen Cuinn is a Glasgow based artist working in experimental theatre, live art and installation. A recurring theme in her work is that of identity and trying to understand society and her individual place in the societies she lives in - this has seen her examine her personal image, in particular her red hair and other people's reactions to it (The Hair on my Head is Dead 2008), question the concept of 'home' and a young person's relationship to Scotland and nationalism (Hoose and Hame 2007/08) and look at loneliness in a solo work aimed at finding a husband to please her parents even though she has been openly gay for 7 years (Garland Ain't Got Nothin' On This Gal 2006)
For images of the above works or more information about Helen Cuinn, have a look at: